The Regicide
by astrokath
Summary: F'ren's Weyrleader already blames him for the death of two queens, and things don't look like they're getting any better... Longer follow-up to three related shorts; see my profile for links.


_I know, I know. I said I wouldn't start posting this until I'd finished off MSR and the drabbles, but after being persuaded to post it elsewhere, I didn't think I could let the good-old Pit of Voles miss out. Anyway, this is the longer F'ren story I've had mentioned in my profile for a while. Hopefully you won't need to be familiar with the three short stories featuring the same characters... but if you want to refresh your memory, 'In the dark watches of the night', 'Paying the price' and 'The long winter' are all still around - see my profile for the links. This story is likely to be of similar length to DragonDays, and as each chapter is averaging 6-8K words, please don't expect rapid updates. I'll do my best to get it finished as quick as I can..._

_As always, I love to hear what you think, good, bad or indifferent. There's no such thing as a bad review: the ones that make me feel all warm and fuzzy get me writing faster, while the ones that make me step back and examine my flaws critically make me a better writer. _

_Right then, off we go! _

* * *

**The Regicide: Chapter 1**

**  
**

_Green winged as the grasses_  
_that Thread would devour._  
_I hear my love call out my name._

_Green wings take them skyward_  
_as Threadfall draws nearer._  
_I watch my love's dragon a-flame._

_Green wings, yes, so many_  
_with Thread seared and over._  
_I see my love never again._

_Early morning, 22.10.34. Above Pars Hold, and westwards across the High Reaches peninsula_

The assembled Wings of High Reaches Weyr appeared from _between_ as one, high above the rolling slopes south of Pars Hold. Wingleaders and seconds checked the positions of their men and dragons, while individual riders made their own final inspections. Encouraging thoughts were passed back and forth amongst the dragons as the Weyr waited for the Threads to start falling - it was a good way to pass the time, and made the waiting easier for the riders.

Today, bronzerider F'ren couldn't really see much point to all the mental chatter. Trath was as fit and healthy as ever, and they made a more than capable team. Patting yourself on the back wouldn't make Thread fall any faster, nor get the job of flaming it finished with any quicker or better. He tucked a stray wisp of dark hair back beneath his helmet while his dragon made subtle adjustments to the trim of his wings, and let his mind wander.

He'd had more than three turns of this now.

Three turns as just another wingrider, supposedly bereft of responsibility, and always, always, under the watchful eyes of the Weyrleader. Three turns too many. And the way Sh'vek _always_ appeared at just the exact moment to make an example out of them, like today, when F'ren's sacks of firestone had strangely all been filled with rocks of the wrong size or quality, making it well nigh impossible for Trath to build up a decent flame, well, you'd think the man had eyes in the back of his head, or...

_F'ren, I don't like the look of this Threadfall. I think we'll need eyes like that today._

The bronzerider squinted towards the leading edge with a sigh. There was an intervening band of cirrus, painfully bright in the sun's glare, and F'ren couldn't really make out much detail. _Sorry. Lend me your eyes?_

_I can do better than that. Azalath is sharing what she sees with me._

F'ren checked their position in the Wing and closed his eyes, not wanting the added disorientation of two viewpoints at once. They were watering enough in the fiercely cold winds as it was. The image from the distant green slowly swam into view... the other dragons in G'dil's Wing were mere blurs, inconsequential compared with the rapidly approaching leading edge of Threadfall. And yes, it did look like a bad one, F'ren decided as he let the image slip away. You couldn't always tell, of course, not until you'd been fighting long enough to assess both that particular 'fall and the weather conditions... but you did learn to trust your own instincts, and those of your dragon even more so. Like an echo reverberating around the Weyrbowl, or a flash of lighting before a thunderclap, sometimes the dragons just _knew_ when things were going to go badly. The dread was infectious... perhaps even strong enough to be a cause in itself... but it wasn't something you could ignore. F'ren could feel that dread in Trath's mind today, and if he was honest with himself, it scared him a little.

This would be a bad Fall.

Everything was decided high above, in the thinnest reaches of the atmosphere, where a dragon couldn't breathe enough to fly, let alone fight. There was a glow to the sky high up to the east, above the darker mass of falling Threads. Up there, that was where the falling Threads first lengthened into bright, hot strands of death. The fast currents of air would twist the falling ribbons unpredictably, sometimes clumping them awkwardly, and sometimes barely affecting them at all, letting them drop in a steady rain. Today's fall was certainly not one of the latter, F'ren realised, as Trath drew his attention to the shifting patterns in the looming grey mass. What made things worse was how unpredictable the next few hours would be; the terrain over Pars Hold was close enough to the Weyr to be familiar, but this fall would take them down the full length of the High Reaches peninsula.

_You're remembering something you read?_ Trath asked, picking up on a thought that F'ren hadn't even realised he was thinking. A long day, two and a half turns ago, one of the few he'd spent in Ista Weyr's records room until Vallenka had put a stop to it. On that particular occasion, the other wingriders in Sh'vek's Wing had been enjoying the varied delights of Tillek Hold's spring Gather... while F'ren pored over the chilling descriptions of Threadfalls from centuries past.

_"Threadfall can_ never _be predicted,"_ he quoted from memory. _"Each fall is inherently unique; the natural pattern laid down from Pass to Pass by time and terrain is inevitably spoiled by the slightest movements of the air, making the whole an unknowable challenge until the very moment you meet it in the air."_

_I could have told you that, you know._ The bronze made a few more minor adjustments to his wings, steadying their passage through the air; in his eagerness to fight, they'd starting to drift out of position.

_It was more than just that, you know. Different ways of fighting, how best to re-stack and layer the Wings in different conditions..._

_We were good Wingleaders, weren't we?_

F'ren sighed. _Could've done better I suppose, but I always thought so._ And now here they were, back amongst the rank and file, with only the most cursory briefing from Sh'vek immediately prior to departing the Weyr. Standing in line in the bowl, listening to the Weyrleader barking out that day's orders, then waiting while his Second C'nir dictated a list of stock formations for each Wing, every dragon put in his or her place. There was no time to properly _prepare_, to go over the likely response of their nearest wingmates to different clumps... And no knowledge of Sh'vek's deeper strategy for that fall beyond being told which Wing would start out where. The Wingleaders and their seconds met behind the closed doors of the council chamber these days. That was one of the things F'ren missed most, not being involved, not knowing what was going on, not being able to influence things for the better in any way... except in the way that all dragons had, that of how much Thread they could char for themselves. And even there... Sh'vek had allowed Flamestrike Wing to develop a worrying competitiveness on that score, and it had quickly spilled over into the rest of the Weyr's fighting Wings. Dammit, it _shouldn't_ be about what each dragon could do, who had the broadest or longest flames! All that mattered was how many dragons were still fit to fly by the end of the fall, and how many burrows you let through. But it wasn't really a point that F'ren was in a position to argue. Increased competition supposedly meant that every dragon tried to excel himself, and the Weyr would prosper accordingly. Huh. Competition and prosperity. Sh'vek certainly had _very_ clear cut ideas about how far he'd let that particular idea fly.

Now wasn't the best time to dwell on such things though. F'ren rolled his shoulders and shook his head, loosening up both mind and body, and took a few last welcome breaths of clean, fresh, freezing air. Soon, the Weyr's dragons would burst into flame, and the air would thicken with fumes and ash. The upper Wings were close now; contact was surely only seconds away. Just enough time for one final check of his fighting straps and the position of the spare firestone sacks. All around him, other riders were doing the same thing. F'ren could feel Trath's readiness in his mind, and a faint rumbling in the dragon's body. The whole Weyr seemed to fall still and silent in instinctive anticipation of Ormaith's bellow, and then, hearing it, surged forward.

_WE FIGHT!_

The eight fighting Wings of the Weyr were arrayed on two levels, the shallow inverted vees of each Wing forming the corners of a rough cube. The Weyrleader had chosen the lower south-east quadrant for his Wing, directing the action from the central point while his two Wingseconds led from each end. Trath was positioned midway down the inner arm, green Oth to his left, blue Ribbath to his right. Each Wing was to hold its station throughout the fall, ascending or descending as one unit. Occasionally, they'd change direction for a tangential sweep, the two arms of the vee peeling away dragon by dragon and reforming again in a smooth, well-practised manoeuvre. Standard stuff, really, keeping the Wing within a fixed volume of sky that kept pace with either the leading edge or trailing edge. Not the choice F'ren would've made, but then again, it _had_ been his own choices that had got him into his current position...

Ahead, the first falling Threads were almost upon them. First contact was always made on the upper levels: Thunderclap, G'dils Wing, had the awkward northeast quadrant, with M'gan's Skyfrost to the south. Trath supplied one last image from green Azalath of the first Threads being charred, and then at last it was their own turn.

Once the leading edge had passed overhead and the fighting began, that was all that mattered. All thoughts of tactics disappeared from F'ren's mind, because the fall _was_ a bad one, right from the start, with no chance for any respite. The first tangle he saw up close was too big for the smaller dragons flying ahead of Trath in the Wing's vee to manage. Blue Tundreth tried to flame it first, catching only the lower third of it before his momentum carried him past. Green Denchath was next in line, but the weather wasn't cooperating today at all, and before she could flame it she was blown off course by a gust. The green had barely enough room to blink _between_ before she risked hitting another falling Thread.

_Let Oth take the singleton; the clump's ours_ F'ren decided.

_She agrees_ Trath said, slipping out of formation. Three heavy wingbeats were enough to catch up with the partially charred tangle. Trath belched flame enthusiastically, burning the rest of it to harmless ash. That done, they blinked _between_ to rejoin the Wing a little behind their usual position. Usually, that'd give them enough space to spot their next target, but already the smaller dragons to either side were becoming too overworked to take out every Thread that fell between them.

_Oth warns us!_ Trath shrieked, frantically skipping between for a second time, attempting to avoid the Thread that threatened the crucial trailing edge of one of his wings.

F'ren froze as they entered _between_, not knowing whether his dragon had avoided a scoring or not until their senses returned to them. But there was no burst of pain from Trath as they reemerged, so they must have escaped unharmed this time. He craned his head round to check on the Thread they'd nearly flown into, watching it flutter perilously down towards the ground. _That's one for Kiath and Linnebith to handle._

_And this one's ours!_

The usual pattern of Threadfighting gradually settled F'ren's nerves. Trath's flame was good and steady, and they soon had enough clear air around them to start thinking properly again. In a fall like this, fluid reactions were needed, adapting not only to the abilities of your own dragon, but also those to either side. Surreptitiously at first, Trath laid claim to the larger clumps falling in Oth's and Ribbath's vicinity, allowing the smaller dragons to use their greater agility to weave around him to pick off the Threads he'd missed. It was F'ren's preferred approach, and while it wasn't precisely how they'd been ordered to fly, he doubted that anyone would have a chance to notice it. So long as his nearest neighbours kept good track of where each other dragon was at any given time, there was no real risk of getting lost _between_ when you skipped to avoid a patch of Thread or another dragon's flame. It was all a balance, like most of life. Slightly more risk, but much more effective results. Today's fall would be over four hours long, and you needed to keep yourself as fresh as possible... particularly when the Wings were taking as much damage as they seemed to be doing today.

As a wingrider, you never got as good a sense of how everyone else was fighting as the Wingleaders and seconds did. No reports at regular intervals, no knowledge of who'd been scored, or how badly, unless it was one of your neighbours in the Wing, or worse, a death. Everyone noticed the deaths. But every now and then, Trath would pass on a snippet of gossip, either from their own Wing, or one of the others. Enough to tell how things were going, in an abstract sense. Then there was the chatter between levels, warnings being sent down to the dragons who'd need to backtrack for a missed clump, messages passed back from the leading edge about changes in the conditions, and the usual mixture of praises and jibes between one dragon and another. Today, the atmosphere remained depressingly tense, and even the usual warnings trickled away as every dragon concentrated on his or her own flying. Was there any need for specific warnings when the whole Weyr was well aware of their peril?

Inevitably, mistakes were made.

The first major incident occured within the first half hour. The forward Wings had just finished their fifth transverse sweep, and had reversed direction to fight back towards the leading edge again - just enough repetition of the pattern for dragons and riders to start to become blase about the manoeuvre. But as the wings reformed, some manner of miscommunication occured between H'ersh, one of Sh'vek's Wingseconds, and the second of V'tin's Wing. It was a basic mistake, the kind of error of judgement a weyrling would make, and although it was rapidly rectified it still left a gap in the Weyr's coverage of the fall. It wasn't as bad as it could have been had the mistake been made on the upper level, but even so, a dense mass of Thread slipped through between the two Wings of dragons. In the confusion, men and dragons hesitated, or rushed in rashly... Trath closed his mind to the mental bursts of pain, but they were still close enough for F'ren to hear the bellows of argument, anguish and alarm from the dragons at the extremities of each Wing. He tried to stay focused on their own aerial battle, and waited anxiously for new orders to be relayed to the Wing.

None came.

_Nothing the queens can't manage_ Trath told him, not sounding entirely convinced. _The trailing edge is light today, and three of V'tin's riders are staying behind to catch what they can. There were some bad scores, but none fatal, or likely to be._

F'ren nodded grimly, glad that the skies beneath them were still cloudless enough to make the queen's job possible, and reached into one of the sacks for more firestone. They had a bit of space, and besides, it was best to keep Trath's flame high until things settled down again. The bronze twisted his head to snatch the thrown rock out of the air, and quickly chewed and swallowed. F'ren took the spare moment of time to eye the sacks slung over Oth's neck; old habits died hard. The green had been flaming hard, and would probably finish her first sack at about the same time Trath did. It made sense to share a weyrling sooner rather than later, as soon as they hit the next clear patch of sky. Not right now, the way the Threads were falling, but certainly well before their second sacks were emptied too far. F'ren directed his bronze towards the largest clump, bracing himself as Trath banked sharply in the air, the dragon losing enough momentum to drop down beside the falling Threads.

_That one was longer than it looked_ the bronze apologised.

F'ren grunted agreement. Powerful wingstrokes had them ascending once again, angling slightly in the sky to pick off another falling strand. The bronze banked again, his passage having carried him beneath Ribbath. The sky tilted, the land swung into view, and F'ren caught a brief glimpse of one of the two High Reaches queens far below. Linnebith was flying right at the edge of the fall's corridor, her rider preparing her flamethrower to char a patch of Threads falling towards the dense orchards on the south facing slopes of the Riverbend Valley. It looked like even the queens were being overworked in this fall, but hopefully enough of the Hold's groundcrews would witness the event for a marked upturn in tithe quality to result. Trath straightened in the air, and F'ren craned his eyes upwards to check the air above the dragon. All was well, and they'd caught up with their alloted position in the Wing again. The upper levels were doing well, it seemed, because the remaining Threads weren't too awkwardly clumped.

_Trath, tell Oth I suggest we call a weyrling for... oh, no! No!_

Right above them, a blue dragon blinked in from _between_, howling in pain. The dragon was badly scored at the juncture of wing and torso, his rider clinging to the straps white-knuckled, blood flowing from a deep wound on one leg. It was all Trath could do to get out of the way, as the blue tumbled past. _S'nell and Eshpith_ F'ren realised, catching a glimpse of the man's contorted features. Eshpith had hatched from the same clutch as Trath, and at one point, S'nell had been one of F'ren's wingmen from Cloudburst. A special case, courtesy of Sh'vek's regular shuffles. He'd been grieving back then, unsettled by the loss of a weyrmate, and it had been almost a year before F'ren felt that he could truly trust the pair in 'fall. But by then, there wasn't much he wouldn't have trusted them with. Eshpith was a good dragon, S'nell a good rider. When he'd lost the Wing, S'nell had even been one of the riders that F'ren's replacement, C'nir, had insisted on keeping.

_I've told Ormaith and the Queens of their injury_ Trath said, eyes whirling a worried orange-red. _They knew, but Jolth thought he'd gone to the Weyr already._

F'ren peered over Trath's shoulder, hesitant about spending too much time inactive, but also determined to watch the blue until he either blinked _between_ again, or one of the queens arrived to break his fall. It didn't look like Eshpith was going anywhere himself, not unless S'nell could get better control of things... keeping your dragon from panicking was the first issue; you couldn't jump _between_ safely when distracted by pain or confusion. Oh no, never like that. Ever. But eventually, someone had to act. You broke through, made a decision, jumped home to safety before your dragon lost his nerve... or you held them tight while waiting for rescue.

_Linnebith can't catch him_, F'ren realised. The younger queen was nearest, but too busy mopping up Thread over the orchards. Where was Kiath? Stretched thin, far away... then there she was, rosy gold in the morning light.

_She has him,_ Trath told him.

_Back to work then. We've Thread to burn._

Another hour in, and it seemed that no-one would return to the Weyr unscathed. Trath had caught a minor lacing from an incompletely burned Thread, and F'ren had picked up a few char burns on his face. Eshpith hadn't been the worst injury by then either; they'd lost a brown and two of the weyrlings only minutes later, one of the latter to a shoddy jump, and the queens had had to make a further three rescues after that. The smaller dragons were noticeably tiring now, and Wing by Wing, the reserves were called in from the Weyr. The Wings had travelled a considerable distance westwards by that time, and it looked as though they'd soon be fighting Thread amongst the clouds blown in from the coast. Sh'vek had his second-shift greens and blues keep pace with the fall just behind the trailing edge, and as the Wing's circuit took them past, the dragons exchanged places as necessary. It was an awkward time, but it meant that everyone kept on fighting, with no breaks in the now well-established pattern. Puteth and Graslath were the greens to either side of Trath now. Puteth was an old dragon, able enough, but lacking imagination. Graslath was younger, but her rider was hopelessly in love with H'ersh, and the pair were unlikely to budge from their assigned flight pattern. F'ren sighed, and resigned himself to an awkward second half to the fall.

_They'll be exhausted by the end,_ Trath noted, and belched out another tongue of flame.

F'ren tossed him the remaining rocks from their third sack, and told him to call the Weyrlingmaster for another sack. _No rush, just let Earith add us to the queue._

Trath rumbled his agreement, and flamed again. _Bronze Mannifeth will join us, as soon as I give them word. After this clump?_

_Sounds good! At this rate, we'll need another before too long._

The bronze followed the falling Thread downwards into the safer zone beneath the fighting Wings, taking the extra space to flame it more economically. F'ren felt his dragon match images with his own eyes, then shift the perspective slightly before passing it on to the weyrling. Seconds later, the younger bronze materialised, his rider already fumbling at the straps holding the sacks in place. The lad's throw was clean, and F'ren had no trouble catching it; he made a note to mention him in passing to one of the other Wingleaders. Probably S'kloss, the youngest current Wingleader. Not Sh'vek, though. Faranth knew, he didn't want to curse a promising lad with that kind of attention! The weyrling blinked away again to true safety, and Trath and F'ren rejoined their Wing. The rest of the fall looked to be about as bloody as the first half had, but hopefully the Wings hadn't let through any more Thread than the groundcrews could deal with. It was hard to tell with the thickening cloud cover, and eventually Sh'vek had to order the lower Wings beneath them. It didn't give you much chance to see what was falling towards you through the clouds, but at least your dragon was spared the awkward updrafts, or the temptation to use the unreliable cloud forms as landmarks when skipping _between_ to dodge Thread. Flaming, skipping _between_, heeding and giving warnings... it was still a bad fall, but it was starting to look as though they'd escape the disasters of the first half.

In a way, F'ren's hopes were perfectly accurate. They didn't have anything like the disasters of the first half of the fall.

What they did have was far, far worse.

They were approaching a tangle of Thread when Trath suddenly twisted away and began climbing frantically through the air towards the clouds. F'ren's first thoughts were utterly confused, and Trath's mind was a roiling chaos.

_What the sharding..._

_Ormaith's orders,_ Trath snapped. _Someone's needed up top, and we're closest. I've a visual from Klewth._

F'ren's heart sank as the image appeared in his mind. Another sorely injured dragon needing rescue was falling towards the cloud layer. F'ren dragged their viewpoint closer to the clouds, and passed it back to Trath. _I have it. Go. Go! We're guiding the queens in?_

Trath confirmed his thoughts as the blackness of _between_ enveloped them.

The Weyr never risked one of its queens on a higher level unless absolutely necessary. Someone must have made the call that the scored brown needed assistance sooner rather than later if he was to be saved, but before the queen arrived, someone else had to get in close enough to ensure that Thread wouldn't threaten her rescue, and to assist if necessary. It was a dangerous role, particularly during conditions such as those they were fighting in today. F'ren wondered how close they really were... though it was true, as far as bronze dragons went, Trath was easily a good choice for the job.

They reappeared above the clouds in exactly F'ren's expected position, just in time to see the brown spiral sharply past. He'd managed to gain enough control to fly... so why hadn't he jumped _between_ on his own? Trath banked into a spiral of his own, surveying their surrounds at the same time as keeping pace with the falling dragon. Miraculously, they'd emerged directly between two clumps, either of which could have grounded Trath for months, or worse. The bronze flamed one, then the other, all the while pulling together a visual for the queen.

_Kiath makes the rescue,_ he told his rider shortly before the gold dragon appeared. She slid easily beneath the brown, taking his weight safely across her back barely more than a dragonlength above the clouds.

_Just in time,_ F'ren remarked, relieved.

Trath flamed another stray Thread before following Kiath at a safe distance into the blankness of the clouds. _Gryth's rider cannot see,_ he said, _else they'd have risked returning to the Weyr themselves._

_Well, they'll have got back safely now, won't they?_

Trath paused to think, and abruptly his mind filled with confusion. _Kiath is still here, in the clouds?_

_What!_

_The Weyrwoman cannot give Kiath a visual. She struggles, and is in pain!_

F'ren felt Trath's mind reach out in several different directions... to the Queen, the injured brown, and down to Sh'vek's Ormaith beneath the clouds. The brown, Gryth, called out in confused pain, and the chilling noise was shortly followed by a second shriek that could only have come from Kiath herself. F'ren slammed an image of the heights well above the Weyr into Trath's head, as the dragon tried to figure out where Kiath was, and what was happening.

_Give it to her,_ the bronzerider insisted. _Linnebith too._

The sickening sense of dread was back in Trath's mind. _Kiath is confused, but she jumps. Linnebith follows. No!_

_What?_

Immense pressure bore down on the minds of both dragon and rider. Trath's flight faltered under the onslaught of conflicting demands from the Weyrleader's bronze and the junior queen, Linnebith, and his own instinctive sense of what was necessary. _Gryth still falls,_ the bronze informed F'ren coldly. _Linnebith demands to know what we did, and to assist getting Kiath to the ground. Ormaith demands to know what we did, and insists we return to the Wing with a damned good explanation. But we're going after Gryth._

F'ren would have made the same decision himself, and applauded Trath's clear thinking. _Agreed. And Kiath?_

The bronze was silent on that score, his concentration fixed on finding Gryth. They broke through the clouds back into clear skies again, and the bronze looked around vainly for the injured brown.

Gryth was nowhere to be seen.

Descending sharply down to the level of the lower Wings, and still searching for sign of the other dragon, both Trath and F'ren found hemselves startled by the unexpected appearance from _between_ of another dragon. Ormaith, and Sh'vek. The Weyrleader leaned across his bronze's neck towards them, his features contorted as he shouted.

"They jumped, you idiots!"

F'ren shook his head, unwilling to believe it. Trath had been almost on top of them, and Kiath had definitely left the brown behind. But then... if that's what had happened, where in Faranth's name had they got to? "Not with Kiath," he shouted back, "and they're still falling!"

The stare he received in reply from Sh'vek was chilling, and F'ren soon knew the reason why. A dragon had just died. _Not Kiath, surely, please!_ he whispered mentally to Trath.

_No,_ the dragon answered in heartbroken relief. _Gryth. I understand now. They jumped to find Linnebith, when Kiath cast them aside, but she was gone. We called her away..._

F'ren felt the bile rise in his throat, suddenly understanding the fate they'd condemned Gryth and his rider to. Oh, they'd still been falling through the air above Riverbend, but so much lower than F'ren and Trath had thought. _Did they..._

_Gryth jumped before they hit ground. He would not have survived the impact._

F'ren swallowed bitterly. _Shit._ He twisted his head round to meet the Weyrleader's eyes; this wouldn't be good. "What are your orders, sir?"

Sh'vek scowled and shook his head. "I'll deal with you later, assuming you choose to survive the rest of this fall. You _may_ wish otherwise. Get back to the Wing; H'ersh is taking charge, and you're to take his place as second." He then went on to prove that Ormaith, too, could force a strong visual on another dragon. Trath accepted the offered image meekly, and slipped _between_.

_Ormaith returns to the Weyr with M'arsen and Pellenth_ the bronze said while they hung senseless in the dark. He held the mental image of his new Wing position closely, and soon it matched reality again. Back in the air, the dragon immediately erupted into flames, his reactions even quicker than F'ren had thought possible. _The fall has worsened down here._

The bronze dragon was right, as usual. Visibility was down about as far as it got, with a humid bank of low cloud extending almost all the way down to the hilltops. The air was nowhere near damp enough to defeat Thread on its own and save the dragonriders the trouble, but the falling Threads were now darkened by the moisture in places, making them much harder to spot as they fell. Even worse, some looked to be safely dead, and weren't. Oh, there'd be burrows a plenty from this fall, that was certain. But for the first time in three turns, F'ren had the chance to make a real difference. He threw Trath a few more chunks of rock, and inspected the Wing while his dragon chewed noisily. "H'ersh is sticking to Sh'vek's pattern then," F'ren muttered to himself. He'd have favoured a wedge at this point, and asked Trath to suggest it to the Wingsecond's dragon. In the distance, the other man looked round towards them, and raised an arm.

_Fith says his rider concurs. We reform the..._

Trath broke off mid-thought and grunted a lungful of flame at nothing. All the way across the sky, every other dragon seemed to lose focus, and the unlucky immediately suffered for it.

_Kiath needs help! The Weyrwoman..._

Everything seemed to shrink in the face of Trath's... no, Kiath's panic. There was pain, and F'ren's thoughts became fogged, but somehow so, so intense as well. Every bit of his strength seemed to be draining away into numbness, except for the scalding echoes of loss and pain reverberating through his bronze's mind, as dragon after dragon encountered disaster. Trath twisted his head from side to side in indecision.

F'ren clamped down on his dragon's emotions as firmly as he dared, blocking the litany of newly deceased dragons and riders from their thoughts. This whole day was impossible, an unthinkable nightmare! _The Weyrwoman isn't dead yet! We can't do a thing for Maenida while there's Thread to be fought. Kiath endangers the Weyr, and everyone living between here and Balen._ Why in Faranth's name hadn't Ormaith and Linnebith got control over Kiath already? He gently eased the bronze's mind away from the panicking queen, and back towards the danger of the Threadfall; hopefully, the other riders would be doing the same for their own dragons. Abashed, Trath quickly pulled himself together and renewed his fight with more fervour than he'd shown all day. F'ren let his bronze flame a clump to ash, then nudged him back into contact with the Wingsecond. _We still need to reform the Wing._ He looked back over his shoulder to check on H'ersh and Fith, but the centre of the Wing held only greens and blues. Had they hopped _between_, or been injured?

_They died._

The bronzerider's heart sank, and he found himself laughing coldly. _Dammit. We've got no choice, Trath. Flamestrike Wing's our problem for the next hour. Get them organised, insist as strongly as you have to. I want us in a proper wedge five minutes ago._

Trath took up a central position, and most of the Wing quickly obliged in forming up around him. Yes, this was working better already, F'ren thought, as they cut a clean swathe through the falling Thread. _Let the others fly as they will, but they'll have more protection in formation. If they don't figure that out for themselves, it's their own problem, not ours._

Trath silently agreed, and called for the first change in direction. The reluctant pairs joined the formation before the Wing had finished its second sweep of the Threadfall corridor, and F'ren was pleased to see Deluge and Icestorm Wings follow suit. Each of them was on their own until... if... Sh'vek returned to take charge. But with so many injuries, they were flying wing-light... _Call back half of the first shift,_ F'ren asked his dragon. If Sh'vek disagreed, he could always stop them at the Weyr. While he waited to see if the extra dragons would be joining them, the bronzerider caught sight of the Weyrlingmaster and his Wing of youngsters far below. He'd obviously elected to allow his senior weyrlings to flame any Thread that escaped the Wings; probably a wise act. But they'd be better use on the upper levels, F'ren realised._Talk to Earith, too. It's the Weyrlingmaster's decision, but we could use a few he trusts on the mop-up line behind our wedge._

A handful of greens and blues returned to rejoin the Wing from the Weyr, and a few minutes later F'ren had an answer from the Weyrling Wing, in the form of a bronze and two blues. Mannifeth was the bronze, a pleasing result in F'ren's eyes. Trath directed them into place, and then resumed flaming Threads in earnest, periodically checking on the other dragons and the inexperienced youngsters.

_They fly well,_ he said after watching one of the blues successfully char, skip and reappear.

_They were close to graduating anyway,_ F'ren agreed. _Keep a close watch on them though; they don't deserve a first fall like this._

Time passed slowly, every second stretching out into minutes, but at last F'ren tasted more than rancid ash in the air... the tang of the ocean air. Beneath the fighting Wings, the coastline slowly emerged from its misty shroud, and F'ren realised the leading edge had already passed above it. They had barely ten more minutes left to fight! Other Wings had already noticed the same thing, he realised... why else the sudden sound of cheers, and the sense of optimism? Of course, there was no cause to relax yet - the last Threads to fall above the land were just as dangerous as the first. Bronze Trath was long familiar with his rider's caution, and the dragon immediately slipped back from the wedge in order to maintain a better perspective of the Wing as it fought, and to chivy anyone who was celebrating too soon.

And then it was over.

The trailing edge was ahead of them, heading out to sea, watched by over two hundred utterly exhausted dragons. F'ren let his arms drop down to his sides and stretched the tension out of his neck and shoulders. By the First Egg, things couldn't have got much worse than that! He let out a loud sigh, and found it turning half into a laugh, or maybe an exhausted sob. Too much had happened today; he could scarcely think! One by one, the other Wings began to blink out to return to the Weyr, and F'ren turned his thoughts back to the job at hand _Dismiss the weyrlings first_, he told his bronze, _while I think about what to tell the Wing._

And what could he tell them? Thank them for listening to his orders when there was no-one else left, only to be undermined as soon as they returned? Praise them for not letting too much Thread through, when there were _bound_ to be burrows scattered across the landscape from here right the way...

Oh fardling, flaming balls of... who was dealing with the _burrows_?

He grabbed his head in his hands and growled in frustration. Linnebith would be taking on Kiath's role with the injured dragons, keeping them calm enough to be treated... and Faranth knew, she'd be sorely pushed just coping with that task, let alone thinking of anything else. Delene certainly didn't have the sense to delegate, Maenida was in who knew what condition, Sh'vek, well, F'ren wasn't in a hurry to ask the man anything at this point.

_The Wing ask us why we wait,_ Trath informed him softly. _We cannot leave yet, can we?_

_No. Not all of us, at any rate. Who's freshest?_

The bronze's mind was coloured by bitter humour. _Better ask who can still fly._

F'ren grunted a laugh. _They'll do. Send everyone else back, the rest can follow us back along the path of 'fall_. As Trath tiredly began winging his way eastwards again, F'ren looked back to see who was following. A dozen dragons; better than he'd expected. Stiff-necked old Puteth was one, and for once F'ren was glad to be accompanied by that pair. Duty-driven old F'sigger would back him up, and see this final task through no matter what.

Flying low across the landscape, the first burrow was easily spotted. The vegetation surrounding the impact site was shrivelling up, and a fat tendril of Thread was visibly consuming a shrub on the surface. F'ren directed one of the blues to make a flaming pass while the other dragons landed, but before they had reached the ground, Trath spoke up with more news.

_Bronze Mannifeth returns to us._

_The weyrling?_

_Yes. His rider brings agenothree tanks and a pump, and shovels. I give them our visual now._

_He does? 'Bout time something went right round here._ Truth be told, he'd not felt this exhausted in turns, and had utterly forgotten the need for more equipment than a dragon's own flames. He fell more than jumped down from Trath's neck as they landed, and eyed the burrow suspiciously. The surface Threads were clearly charred, but if a whole tangle had burrowed, very little of it would have stayed on the surface.

Instinct made him look up again as the bronze weyrling blinked in from _between_ right above the burrow. He quickly landed to join the other dragons, and his rider slid down from his dragon's back, arms full of equipment. "I brought the stuff you asked for, Sir!" he said cheerily.

F'ren caught his eye with a level stare, and the lad winked conspiratorially.

"Thank you..."

_O'reb_

"...O'reb," F'ren finished. Smart lad, but if he wanted an ally or influence in the Weyr, he was making a pretty sorry choice of it. He gestured to the other riders to unload the agenothree tanks slung beneath Mannifeth's belly, and watched as the riders set to work destroying the first burrow. _Tell Mannifeth that he and his rider have impressed us today. That they may make good Wingleader material in the future, so long as they don't get too cocky. Stress that last bit, he's way too enthusiastic._

_I have,_ Trath replied. _Mannifeth says his rider is very scared about the injuries back at the Weyr, and is trying to stay strong._

Well that was a good sign. F'ren walked over to O'reb, and slapped the lad across the shoulders. "Good work, lad."

The boy gave a hesitant, somewhat sickly smile in reply. "I didn't know a 'fall could be this bad, Sir."

F'ren sighed and folded his arms, scuffing his feet on the denuded dirt. He looked blankly out across the landscape, trying to spot the next burrow, and quietly offered the lad a few more words of advice. The boy could take them or leave them as he wanted. "You kept your head, and your dragon will soon forget what you've seen today. You may not, but bad memories are their own reward. We're still alive to have them at least, and we've done the job our dragons were born for. You can be proud of that." He turned to look back at the boy... no, young man, after what he'd witnessed today... and found him nodding soberly. "Get back to the Weyr now, or Earith will never let me hear the end of it." F'ren raised his voice, and called out to Puteth's rider, who was busily directing agenothree into the burrow.

"F'sigger, when you're done there, would you accompany O'reb back to the Weyr?"

The greenrider thrust the wand into one of his wingmates hands with a glare. "Aye," he said, and started striding towards F'ren.

F'ren met him halfway, and hurriedly spoke first, quietly enough that no-one else could hear. "This job's too big for us, especially with only one tank. We'll be too slow."

The greenrider looked round to give F'ren a questioning stare as they approached his dragon. "Not as stupid as you look, are you sir? You want me to get help?"

"Absolutely. I don't care who, just get it done. Start back at Riverbend, with the older burrows."

F'sigger grunted, and grabbed hold of his riding straps. "I'm not stupid either, man," he said, hauling himself up onto his dragon. "We'll get it done."

"See that you do."


End file.
